Wednesday, April 6, 2011

"It’s personal, every song, every note – it moves out and reaches into you, and you just know that you didn’t find this band, they came looking for you." -- The Red Alert

"The kind of heart-swelling soundscapes that beg to be described in terms of glaciers and geysers." -- Uncut

Uppsala, Sweden's cult-beloved atmospheric rock group Jenifereverhave posted the first video from their forthcoming epic third album, Silesia. The animated clip for the song "The Beat of Our Own Blood" tells the true tale of director Ashley Dean's grandfather Jack Dean's brave escape from the coal mines of Silesia during WWII. Consequence of Sound premieres the video (the first of three in a series) today, watch it HERE.

Jeniferever is often described in epic terms: majestic, soaring, atmospheric, careening, sweeping. And, the quartet's forthcoming third album, Silesia (Monotreme Records) is a fitting example of their masterful meld of melodic pop songcraft with post rock's expansive sonic wanderlust. It is an album borne of tragic loss and motion.

Jeniferever – Kristofer Jönson, Martin Sandström, Olle Bilius and Fredrik Aspelin – have previously been compared to some truly otherworldly outfits like The Appleseed Cast, Explosions In The Skyand Immanu El. But every second of Silesia is tied to place and time, bound by reality and borne by experience. It’s less about escape, more confronting the unexpected trials that send one’s life into undulation.

The album’s title is taken from the former name of Berlin’s Ostbahnhof. It was near here, while on tour in 2009, that Kristofer learned that his father had passed away. Reality bit where there was so often release; the structure of life on the road collapsed, and the band cancelled their remaining dates. Several months later, a third album began to form; while not wholly informed by the recent tragedy, nevertheless the collection bears its title with no little relevance. Said Kristofer, “I liked the idea of naming it after a railway station since it's a place of motion, a place where people arrive and depart and sometimes maybe depart never to come back...” And, the end product is Jeniferever’s brightest, most immediate long-player yet. From pain, confidence; from darkness, light.

Two previous albums – 2006’s Choose a Bright Morning and 2009’s Spring Tides – earned the band the affections of in-the-know admirers. It was easy to be charmed by their soft-focus dynamics, their soaring climaxes and emotions-stirring textures. But it wasn’t so easy to chance upon their fare, and word of mouth has largely driven the group’s reach. Whether Silesia breaks through the invisible divide between underground and mainstream is out of the band’s hands. But there are moments of snappy accessibility that will surely tick relevant radio boxes, given the chance.

There’s a crack and strut to "The Beat of Our Own Blood", the album’s third track. “Goodbye to bright spotlights,” sings Kristofer, taking the listener into the belly of the urban beast, through a city’s trains and tunnels. "Deception Pass" might be the band’s heaviest song yet, drums and bass combining to kick up a turbulent maelstrom of menace. "Hearths" threads elegant atmospherics like satellite trails across a starry sky, and the title-track’s sentiment, while stemming from a single heart, is truly universal.

Leaves fall, ice builds, the sun breaks cover, flowers blossom. Everything’s part of a cycle, every aspect has its beauty. Silesia is an album of similar changes and contrasts, of life and death, and just as fascinating as the forever-changing nature of what’s outside your window.